Matthew Jones Padgett

My project aims to unite archaeological analysis of prehistoric agriculture and climate change with contemporary projects of food security and traditional farming, with the aim of enriching both conversations. Specifically, this archaeological study focuses on the Neolithic-Iron Age transition in South India, a period associated with climate change and aridification in the Deccan coincided with social change in the form of settlement reorganization, growing inequality, and agricultural intensification. Combining archaeobotany, functional weed ecology, and isotopic analysis of plant material from prehistoric sites surrounding the contemporary town of Maski, this research will reconstruct past agricultural production, exploring the variety of ways climate vulnerabilities were experienced and addressed in the deep past. This archaeological work will be accompanied by visits to a number of research institutions, botanic gardens, and herbariums. These are meant to address a methodological gap—compiling resources and reference material on weed taxa in South Asia—but also to embed this archaeobotanical analysis within broader conversations about food security, traditional agriculture, and climate adaptation. As such, this study seeks to both add to our knowledge of agricultural history in a region of independent domestication, and to address the relationship between archaeobotany and the agricultural challenges of the present.